Unaccessable random folders on a portable harddrive

Factual Questions
1

Hi
Some random folders have appeared on my harddrive and I can’t delete them or even view their contents…

If I right click and try to view their contents it says it has a 0 size.

Here are most of the names: (I’ve left off some characters)

0a69b3ea7d63611cc1ad
0cc7e1a62b9caf51280db8
448d36e1d53c9725e5fc88
6744d227601bc57748109
b5a59f26748fb879492a90

Is there any way to get rid of them?

2

You can delete them from the command line.

3

looks to me like your disk file system is corrupt - at this point back up all the data you can on the drive, then format it and copy the data back (if the format succeeds without problems).

Si

4

I went to the windows command prompt and it said “access denied” when I used rmdir.

5

I’ll try that… btw the folders were all created about a year ago within a space of 2 days.

6

Then it looks somewhat more like the remnants of Windows updates.

Sudden random inaccessible directories could be file system corruption. Since it has been working for a long time since they appeared, probably not.

Right-click the folder, select properties. Choose the Security tab. Click Advanced. Choose the option to Take Ownership. Tick to Change Subfolders and Files. Apply, then try deleting the folder.

7

Ran out of Edit time, so more accurate instructions follow

This is for Windows 7, Windows Vista/XP will be broadly similar. If you don’t have a Security tab in Properties, you probably have Home edition - try doing this in Safe mode.

Si

8

Thanks I was able to change ownership of those folders and delete them…